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The first dyslexia laws in the United States were passed in Texas in 1985. This historical event was accomplished, in large part, thanks to the efforts of Tincy Miller, the parent of a son with dyslexia who became a tenacious advocate for dyslexia legislation in Texas. Given her influential position on the Texas State Board of Education and the knowledge that she had acquired about dyslexia from her training as an Academic Language Therapist at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, Texas, she had the power, the knowledge, and the motivation to improve the quality of education of all children in Texas. See http://www.region10.org/interactive-dyslexia-handbook/i-dyslexia-law-history/ for a complete de-scription of the history of Tincy's journey. Thanks to these initial efforts in the area of dyslexia legislation, many students with dyslexia are getting the services that they need to overcome the struggles that have plagued these otherwise often very bright and creative individuals in states across the United States.
The current issue of Perspectives on Language and Literacy (Perspectives) attempts to provide the reader with not only a broad perspective of current dyslexia legislation across the United States and background on the importance of the early identification of dyslexia and teacher training, but it also provides the reader with recent examples of successful grass roots efforts in this area and ways to address teacher education that do not require legislative action.
It is important for the reader to understand that there is no universally accepted definition of dyslexia. Although Tolson and Krnac (this issue) base their discussion of the early identification of dyslexia on the NICHD definition of dyslexia adopted by the IDA Board of Directors in 2002, this definition of dyslexia has not been universally accepted by those in the dyslexia community. The term dyslexia means many different things to different people across the United States and around the world. As is evidenced in the Youman and Mather article, states in the United States have addressed dyslexia legislation from different perspectives. While some states have passed dyslexia laws that use the term dyslexia in a general way to refer to students who are struggling in reading, other states use the term dyslexia more specifically to refer to students who have been identified...